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Article: EDITORIAL: Why have hate crime laws?(Editorial)
- Article from:
- Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)
- Article date:
- July 9, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Chicago Tribune. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Jul. 9--The Tribune carried an interesting story recently about a particularly heinous double murder in Knoxville, Tenn. The two young victims, who were kidnapped, raped and killed, were white. The three men and a woman who stand charged with the crime are black.
The story posed some difficult questions about how this country deals with crimes that have a racial overtone -- when someone of one race kills someone of another race. And it asked the question: What is a hate crime?
The definitions in federal law and various state laws differ, but generally a hate crime is considered to be any crime that is motivated by bias based on race, religion or other ...